Life is a puzzle, come here for the missing peace.

Churches use signs of the times

Life is a puzzle, come here for the missing peace.
Sermon: Love Thy Neighbor. Guests welcome!
Extreme Makeover, Transforming Your Life: New Year, New You?
The Christian Faith Gets Physical!
Holiday rush got you down? Come here for a faith lift.
If you drive thru Mon-Fri stop by on Sunday.
Friends don't let friends go to hell.
It's a good thing God changes lives quicker than we do our sign!

from a news story by Lisa Pupo,
Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 28, 2006
www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/opinion/local2/region/13977651.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Happy IVGLDSW Day!

Today is International Very Good Looking, Darn Smart Woman's Day, so please send this message to someone you think fits this description. Please do not send it back to me as I have already received it from a Very Good Looking, Darn Smart Woman!

And remember this motto to live by: Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" Have a wonderful day!

To Us!!

Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the heck happened.
-Cora Harvey Armstrong-

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
-Helen Hayes (at 73)-

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows.
-Janette Barber-

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
-Lily Tomlin-

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being -- hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
-Erma Bombeck-

Old age ain't no place for sissies.
-Bette Davis-

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
-Rhonda Hansome-

The phrase "working mother" is redundant.
-Jane Sellman-

Every time I close ! the door on reality, it comes in through the windows.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
-Caryn Leschen-

I try to take one day at a time -- but sometimes several days attack me at once.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
-Catherine-

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb -- and I'm also not blonde.
-Dolly Parton-

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
-Sue Grafton-

I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.
-Roseanne Barr-

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
-Margaret Thatcher-

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
-Gloria Steinem-

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

Modern Crucifixion

"If Jesus Christ were to come again today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it."

~ Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881),
19th-century British historian.

"I'd rather be happy than right."

Make yourself happy instead of right.
"Start evaluating the things you do in your relationship based on whether those thoughts, feelings and actions are working. For example, you don't have to prove over and over that you know what you're talking about more than your partner. Instead, choose a different emotion such as tolerance, understanding or compassion that does not escalate hostility in your relationship. By deciding to be happy rather than right, you will be receptive to your partner's attempts to de-escalate hostility and return to civil interactions."

~ Dr. Phil

http://www.drphil.com/
articles/article/81

Live Well ♥ Laugh Often ♥ Love Much

Live Well ♥ Laugh Often ♥ Love Much
†

a sense that he truly respected what they did

Harvard: Rich, prestigious and unmanageable?

CNN.com, Thursday, February 23, 2006; Posted: 9:54 a.m. EST
(bold added by blogger)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Leading the world's wealthiest and probably most famous university sounds like the plummiest job in academe -- with a staff, a house, and a half-million dollar salary among the many perks.

But running Harvard isn't easy. Neil Rudenstine, school president from 1991 to 2001, was forced to take a leave of absence for exhaustion in 1994. His successor, Lawrence Summers, announced Tuesday he would resign June 30 after a tumultuous five years, his ambitious agenda to get Harvard's territorial undergraduate and professional schools on the same page done in by faculty revolts and a brusque management style. . . .

"Universities have been around for a long time. It's not unusual to have blips like this," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education. "I think it becomes serious when you have four or five presidents in a row who only last two or three years."

The choice will have to be someone who knows how to get things done in the unusual structure of a university, where faculty -- as they proved with Summers -- hold many of the cards.

"The question is can you buy them off with love," said Claudia Goldin, an economics professor. "That's cheap, but it takes someone to do it. And Larry didn't have the ability to buy them off with love and kindness and affection and a sense that he truly respected what they did, though deep down inside he does."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/23/
harvard.future.ap/index.html

Anger

Anger comes from pain, fear, or frustration.
The best way to reduce anger is to adjust your expectations to be more realistic.
We try to control the external world because we feel chaos inside.
We can't control life.
Just try to get through today and try to find joy.
Don't expect to control everything.

~ Dr. Phil, Feb. 21, 2006

Go to Sleep, Angelo

from a sermon by Rev. Dr. David McKane
PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM
Delivered July 17,2005
First-St. Andrew’s United Church of Canada
London, Ontario, Canada
http://www.fsaunited.london.on.ca/
Worship/20050717.html

Pope John 23rd was one of God’s great saints. He was a deeply humble man with a great sense of humour. He was born into a farming family of thirteen children and once said that the family was so poor that there was no wine for the children.

"There are three ways to ruin your life," he once told the press with a twinkle in his eye, "gambling, loose women, and farming. My father chose the most boring."

Every evening he would end his prayers by asking himself, "Who governs the church? You or the Holy Spirit?
Very well, then, go to sleep, Angelo."

Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli, Pope John 23rd

---

from a sermon by the Rev. Dr. David E. Leininger:
WHOSE CHURCH IS IT ANYWAY?
Delivered 7/14/96
First Presbyterian Church, Warren, Pennsylvania
http://www.presbyterianwarren.com/
whose.html

Perhaps you are familiar with the name Angelo Roncalli. You may know him better by the name he took late in life, Pope John XXIII. It is safe to say the John XXIII made more of an impact on the life of the Christian church than anyone since Martin Luther. It was John XXIII who was responsible for the sweeping changes brought about by Vatican II - a less legalistic approach to faith, worship in the language of the people, an openness to non-Catholic Christians, to name just a few.

It is said that Pope John's bedtime prayer was routinely the kind of conversation between himself and the Lord that prayer ought to be. As he reflected on the events of the day, the trials and tribulations of leadership, he heard, "Whose church is it anyway? Yours? or Mine?" There would be no need to respond. Then he would hear, "Very well then. Go to sleep, Angelo. Go to sleep."

Loneliness

"At times loneliness will weigh heavily on the priest, but not for that reason will he regret having generously chosen it. He who has chosen to belong completely to Christ will find, above all, in intimacy with him and in his grace, the power of spirit necessary to banish sadness and regret and to triumph over discouragement."

Pope Paul VI
http://www.elibronquotations.com/
cat.phtml?sctnid=152&page=4

Productivity

The following quotes are from Sally McGhee:

Small things done consistently in strategic places have major impact.

The truth is, most people use only 15 percent of what they file, and this makes the other 85 percent ineffective.

A simple test for deciding whether to keep information is to ask yourself these questions:
* Does the information relate to one of your meaningful objectives? If not, delete it.
* Can you find the information somewhere else, such as another department, a SharePoint site, your company intranet, or the Internet? If so, delete it.
* Are you likely to refer to the information in the next six months? If not, delete it.
* Do you have to keep the information because it is legal or human resources information? If not, delete it.

On average, people we work with spend two to three hours a day working in e-mail and 60 minutes a day finding and filing information. After setting up an Integrated Management System, they spend one to two hours a day working in e-mail and 10 minutes a day finding and filing information. That's a savings of nearly two hours a day, or almost 12 weeks a year!

-- Sally McGhee, Consultant and Productivity Expert,
McGhee Productivity Solutions

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/
FX011456171033.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getworkdone/
productivity.mspx?pf=true

Philadelphia Presbytery spreading the Gospel

In 1707, Philadelphia Presbytery sought to establish by common consent a “uniformity of procedure in the interests of spreading the Gospel:”

First, That every minister in their respective congregations, read and comment upon a chapter of the Bible every Lord's day, as discretion and circumstances of time, place, &c., will admit.
Second over: That it be recommended to every minister of the Presbytery to set on foot and encourage private Christian societies.
Third over: That every minister of the Presbytery supply neighboring desolate places where a minister is wanting, and opportunity of doing good offers.

From 1706 to 1716 the number of ministers increased from seven to seventeen.

from Presbyterians in Colonial Pennsylvania, Guy Soulliard Klett. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937, pages 46-7, 50.

Find one person who can be supportive

The important thing is to keep pursuing what you love. Keep honing and developing those skills.
Everyone else may say "You should be this and that." They probably mean well. They might love you.

Be kind to them, be respectful of them, but hang out with somebody else.
Find one person, just one person, who can be supportive of what you are doing.

~ David Amram, musician

Difficult vs. Impossible

Google Quote of the Day:

"Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult."

-- Samuel Johnson

Men and Women Minding Their Own Business

This is so true!

Letters To An American Lady
-- C.S. Lewis

“I have a notion that, apart from actual pain, men and women are quite diversely afflicted by illness. To a woman one of the great evils about it is that she can’t do things. To a man (anyway a man like me) the great consolation is the reflection “Well, anyway, no one an now demand that I should do anything”. I have often had the fancy that one stage in Purgatory might be a great big kitchen in which things are always going wrong — milk boiling over, crockery getting smashed, toast burning, animals stealing. The women have to learn to sit still and mind their own business: the men have to learn to jump up and do something about it. When both sexes have mastered this exercise, they go on to the next.” . . .
-- written at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 31/7/62

“My idea of the Purgatorial kitchen didn’t mean that anyone had lately been “getting in my hair”. It is simply my lifelong experience — that men are more likely to hand over to others what they ought to do themselves, and women more likely to do themselves what others wish they would leave alone. Hence both sexes must be told “Mind your own business”, but in two different senses!”
-- written at The Kilns, Headington Quarry, Oxford, 3 Sept 62

pages 102-4

The Sin of Hiding

I think that the following Mitazi Minor article is extreme on the side of feminism, especially the naive, condescending, and disrespectful view that the Syro-Phoenician woman "bested him in the argument." However, she makes some good points and the "sin of hiding" is descriptive of people I know.

I like better the C.S. Lewis quote from Letters To An American Lady (see previous blog entry):

“I have often had the fancy that one stage in Purgatory might be a great big kitchen in which things are always going wrong — milk boiling over, crockery getting smashed, toast burning, animals stealing. The women have to learn to sit still and mind their own business: the men have to learn to jump up and do something about it. . . . It is simply my lifelong experience — that men are more likely to hand over to others what they ought to do themselves, and women more likely to do themselves what others wish they would leave alone. Hence both sexes must be told “Mind your own business”, but in two different senses!”

following is quoted from:
SPIRITUALITY TODAY
Summer 1991, Vol.43 No. 2, pp. 134-141
http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/91432minor.html

Mitzi Minor:
The Women of the Gospel of Mark
and Contemporary Women's Spirituality

bold font added by blogger:

CONTEMPORARY women who are seeking to nurture the spirituality both of themselves and of other women have discovered the need of women to develop their own sense of self, to become fully human, so that they are able to relate to God and to others as whole persons capable of developing and sharing their vital energies and creativity with the world. This need is a result of the reinforcement by most patterns of family and education of two roles for women: (1) women are socialized into being desirable objects who dress, think, and act in order to receive acceptance and adulation, especially from men; (2) women are socialized to live for others, that is, to submerge themselves in others' identities, needs, interests.(1) A woman who has been so socialized can give up too much of herself so that nothing remains of her own uniqueness. She may come to view herself as an emptiness seemingly without value to herself, to her peers, or, perhaps, even to God, writes Valerie Saiving (37). In such circumstances, this woman's sin, instead of being encompassed by such terms as "pride" or "will-to-power" (definitions of sin constructed primarily on the basis of masculine experience)(2) requires other terms such as triviality, distractibility, lack of an organizing center, dependence on others, inability to make decisions for oneself, sentimentality, mistrust of reason, weak submissiveness, fear, self-hatred, jealousy, timidity, manipulation -- in short, underdevelopment or negation of self (Conn 37,39,11).

Susan Nelson Dunfee has called this sin "the sin of hiding" and notes that it results in a woman expending her energy not in the acceptance of her own freedom and full humanity but in running from that freedom by pouring those energies into the lives of others (319). To have a healthy spirituality, women must "repent" of this sin. Furthermore, according to Karen Barta, instead of pursuing what is often viewed as the highest Christian virtue (i.e. self-sacrificing love which makes negation of self into a virtue),(3) women must first seek to become fully human by being self-asserting and self-possessing so that they have the courage to expose themselves to the fears and dangers involved in being fully responsible for themselves (94). By such claiming of themselves they come to understand themselves as whole persons with worthy contributions to make to God's creation.

...

NOTES

(1) Joann Wolski Conn, "Women's Spirituality: Restriction and Reconstruction," in Women's Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development, ed. Joann Wolski Conn (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 10-11. In a similar vein, Sandra M. Schneiders, "The Effects of Women's Experience on their Spirituality," also in Women's Spirituality, writes of women being socialized to "nonpublic" roles. In public roles, a woman is "male-dependent" -- the daughter of, the mother of, the sister of, the wife of someone who had a name in a way she never would" (32). Both of these articles were originally published in Spirituality Today, the former in Winter 1982 and the latter in Summer 1983.

(2) Saiving (35). See also Wendy M. Wright, "The Feminine Dimension of Contemplation," in The Feminist Mystic and Other Essays on Woman and Spirituality, ed., Mary E. Giles (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 109.

(3) Dunfee (321). Dunfee also noted that the sin of hiding actually hides under the guise of self sacrifice (322). Conn, in "Women's Spirituality," claims that "women are led to believe they are virtuous when actually they have not yet taken the necessary possession of their lives to have an authentic 'self' to give in self-donating love. They are often praised as holy when they are still spiritually dwarfed" (12).

...

WORKS CITED

Barta, Karen A. The Gospel of Mark. The Message of Biblical Spirituality Series, vol. 9. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988.

Conn, Joann Wolski, ed. Women's Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development. New York: Paulist Press, 1986.

Dunfee, Susan Nelson. "The Sin of Hiding: A Feminist Critique of Reinhold Niebuhrs Account of the Sin of Pride." Soundings 65 (1982).

Saivin & Valerie. "The Human Situation: A Feminist View." In Womanspirit Rising. Ed. by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

Patience

quotes on patience from Quotations Page:

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
-- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

A great preservative against angry and mutinous thoughts, and all impatience and quarreling, is to have some great business and interest in your mind, which, like a sponge shall suck up your attention and keep you from brooding over what displeases you.
-- Joseph Rickaby

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
-- Saint Francis de Sales

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
-- Brian Adams

It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.
-- Elizabeth Taylor (1932 - ), "A Wreath of Roses"

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
-- Hyman Rickover (1900 - 1986)

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

He that can have patience can have what he will.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.
-- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
-- Chinese proverb

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.
-- Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.
-- George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon

All human power is a compound of time and patience.
-- Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850)

Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.
-- Proverbs 25:15

Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.
-- Peter Marshall

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
-- Unknown

For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness; whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
-- Smiles

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out brute labor.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
-- Author Unknown

There are times when God asks nothing of his children except silence, patience and tears.
-- C. S. Robinson

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
--Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains.
-- Dutch

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
-- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is simple patience.
-- Horace Bushnell

Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn into bees, and kill themselves in stinging others.
-- Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

It seems to me probable that anyone who has a series of intolerable positions to put up with must have been responsible for them in some extent; not that it was simply "their fault" - I don't mean that- but that they have contributed to it by impatience, or intolerance, or brusqueness- or some provocation.
-- Robert Hugh Benson